Although more than $90 billion has been spent on making computer technology accessible in classrooms across the nation and we believe that technology can help to achieve goals related to traditional and numerical literacy and creating critical thinking, intellectual individuals, neither of these goals have been achieved. This is less due to the lack of technology and its effectiveness potential and more so dependent on pedagogy. Due to Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and high stakes testing, teachers, particularly those serving low-income and high minority schools, are focused on “drill-and-practice transmission pedagogy” rather than developing innovative strategies. There are two dominating rationales for continuing to invest in technology for education:
21st Century Literacy Skills: develop the literacy and numercy skills students require to function in the 21st century society and global economy
Improve achievement gap: improve learning outcomes for all students, but particularly for low-income and minority students who experience disproportionate underachievement.
Since education is moving from being primarily text dominated for developing literacy to multiple forms of electronic communication for literacy, policymakers are moving toward addressing the challenge of realigning school curricula and assessment systems with traditional and twenty-first century literacies. One of the major reasons the transition between the two literacies has not been smooth is because of the tension between inquiry-based and transmission-based pedagogy.
Inquiry-based pedagogy (social constructivist and transformative) aims to help students construct curriculum related knowledge.
Transmission-based pedagogy is primarily taught to low-income students and focuses on having students internalize curriculum to pass high stakes tests.
Access to and Use of Technology
Access
“Digital Divide” which refers to the lack of accessibility to technology low-income students when compared to more affluent students yields social and educational consequences. Stats:
2001: 5 to 17-year-olds whose families lived in poverty were less likely to use the internet at home (47 percent compared to 82 percent).
1994-2003: Public schools with Internet access increased from 35 to almost 100 percent.
2003: There was a 5.1 student to 1instructional computer with internet access in higher poverty schools while there was a 4.2 to 1 ratio in lower poverty schools.
While a technology gap between poverty or minority and more affluent students still exists, computer technology with Internet access has decreased in recent years. The problem remains in home access to computer. It has been shown that low-income students also benefit less academically from technology access than high-income students, but this may be attributed to teachers’ assumptions about home computer access and homework/projects they assign.
Use
Low-income Black and Hispanic students typically use technologies for remedial or vocational uses while high-income White and Asian students use technologies for higher-order academic purposes.
LOW SES VS. HIGH SES vs.
Comparisons of low-income and high-income high schools found similar student-to-computer ratios, but there was a significant difference in how the technology was used.
The environment of high-stakes testing seems to exacerbate this problem.
Importance: The use of computers for lower-cognitive skills is negatively related to academic achievement, while the use of computers for higher-cognitive skills is positively related to academic achievement. Technology can thus be seen as amplifying the divide between low-income and high-income schools.
"Performativity" refers to situations in which teachers go through the motions, ticking checklists of skills, and generally losing sight on the larger issues of knowledge constructions and purposeful learning. An example of this would be an activity such as learning basic computer skills or how to use a particular program as an end in itself. Performativity is found in both low-income and high-income schools, but affects low-income schools more.
Studies have shown that there is an increase in engagement with literacy tasks, including improvements in affect, more creative outputs, and more time spent on the task. While this is great for teachers, there hasn't been a subsequent increase in reading, writing, and language arts scores.
Effectiveness of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in Supporting Student Learning
The Apparent Lack of Overall Impact
In spite of massive investments in ICT by governments, there has been minimal evidence of any overall enhancement of academic learning. This debunks the naive idea that technology investment will automatically yield results. In fact, certain studies have shown a negative correlation between technology access and performance.
Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies
Small-scale experiments showed that technology does impact students positively.
Individualized programs raised student scores from a range of 50th percentile to 65th through 50th percentile to 85th.
Individualization of the technology programs was a large component in how much improvement each student made.
However, while these positive results in small-scale contexts, that doesn't mean that we can generalize about the effectiveness of technology in all classrooms-- there are simply too many different classroom contexts and types of implementation.
In research, only 4 general claims about ICTs could be made:
Students' attitudes toward computer technology grows with exposure
ICTs can be positive forms of group work if teachers are thoughtful about age, task, and independence allowed.
ICTs are great for math instruction on higher level concepts
Majority of research reviewed is contradictory or seriously flawed.
But these smaller, positive experimental cases are still helpful for looking at how to implement technology in the classroom.
Impact of ICT on Reading Development: Meta-Analyses
National Reading Panel (NRP) says...
Research on the impact of ICT on reading development yielded positive results, but few practical applications.
Technology was not being used in groundbreaking ways, but as a tool in the traditional curriculum.
ICT for ELLs had a minimal though positive effect, however, it was unclear if it was the cause of the intervention or the technology.
Teacher training is still more effective than technology training.
Which means.... don't go changing early reading programs to computer-based programs just yet!
Research Involving Commercial Programs
However, NRP did not consider the effects of some commercial programs...
While the websites all have positive things to say, many studies were conducted by the researchers from these companies (Read 180) which are inherently biased, and others have conflicting research (AR).
Overall, independent researchers tended to be less positive about effectiveness of commercial programs than the company researchers were.
Motivation
Gains due to motivation... is it the excitement of using technology? Or the actual software/program?
Answer: it's the technology! Studies show that just giving students laptops to do classwork on is enough to result in gains.
The Issue of Cost Effectiveness
Costliness of commercial programs is a critical aspect of the research. As an example, imagine a school implements an English program. Then they are offered a better English program. Would the cost to replace the existing program yield higher results? This kind of opportunity cost ideology takes place in schools on a daily basis.
Other issues with implementing technology immediately include:
Basic literacy skills don't need technology to be taught, and show little improvement with technology.
Technology must be sustainable and consistent as the student grows.
Do reading programs create life-long readers?
Many critics, such as Krashen, believe that reading without being read to online or told the definition, is far more lasting than technology doing all the work. Many critics do argue in favor of technology, but many research are still looking for definitive research that proves technology has it's place in education and is cost effective.
Design Principles for Technology-Supported Instruction
What forms of technology will result in deeper learning and engage students in existing reading? In order to ensure the technology worked with answers these questions, you should ask yourself a series of questions:
1. Does the technology-supported instruction provide cognitive challenge and opportunities for processing of meaning?
2. Does the technology-supported instruction relate instruction to prior knowledge and experiences derived from students' homes and communities?
3. Does the technology-supported instruction promote active self-regulated collaborative inquiry?
4. Does the technology-supported instruction promote extensive engaged reading and writing across the curriculum?
5. Does the technology-supported instruction help students develop strategies for effective reading, writing, and learning?
6. Does the technology-supported instruction promote affective involvement and identify investment on the part of the students?
Table of Contents
Introduction
Although more than $90 billion has been spent on making computer technology accessible in classrooms across the nation and we believe that technology can help to achieve goals related to traditional and numerical literacy and creating critical thinking, intellectual individuals, neither of these goals have been achieved.This is less due to the lack of technology and its effectiveness potential and more so dependent on pedagogy. Due to Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP) and high stakes testing, teachers, particularly those serving low-income and high minority schools, are focused on “drill-and-practice transmission pedagogy” rather than developing innovative strategies.
There are two dominating rationales for continuing to invest in technology for education:
Since education is moving from being primarily text dominated for developing literacy to multiple forms of electronic communication for literacy, policymakers are moving toward addressing the challenge of realigning school curricula and assessment systems with traditional and twenty-first century literacies. One of the major reasons the transition between the two literacies has not been smooth is because of the tension between inquiry-based and transmission-based pedagogy.
Access to and Use of Technology
Access
“Digital Divide” which refers to the lack of accessibility to technology low-income students when compared to more affluent students yields social and educational consequences.Stats:
While a technology gap between poverty or minority and more affluent students still exists, computer technology with Internet access has decreased in recent years. The problem remains in home access to computer. It has been shown that low-income students also benefit less academically from technology access than high-income students, but this may be attributed to teachers’ assumptions about home computer access and homework/projects they assign.
Use
Low-income Black and Hispanic students typically use technologies for remedial or vocational uses while high-income White and Asian students use technologies for higher-order academic purposes.LOW SES VS. HIGH SES
"Performativity" refers to situations in which teachers go through the motions, ticking checklists of skills, and generally losing sight on the larger issues of knowledge constructions and purposeful learning. An example of this would be an activity such as learning basic computer skills or how to use a particular program as an end in itself. Performativity is found in both low-income and high-income schools, but affects low-income schools more.
Studies have shown that there is an increase in engagement with literacy tasks, including improvements in affect, more creative outputs, and more time spent on the task. While this is great for teachers, there hasn't been a subsequent increase in reading, writing, and language arts scores.
Effectiveness of ICT (Information and Communication Technologies) in Supporting Student Learning
The Apparent Lack of Overall Impact
In spite of massive investments in ICT by governments, there has been minimal evidence of any overall enhancement of academic learning. This debunks the naive idea that technology investment will automatically yield results. In fact, certain studies have shown a negative correlation between technology access and performance.Experimental and Quasi-Experimental Studies
However, while these positive results in small-scale contexts, that doesn't mean that we can generalize about the effectiveness of technology in all classrooms-- there are simply too many different classroom contexts and types of implementation.
In research, only 4 general claims about ICTs could be made:
But these smaller, positive experimental cases are still helpful for looking at how to implement technology in the classroom.
Impact of ICT on Reading Development: Meta-Analyses
National Reading Panel (NRP) says...
- Research on the impact of ICT on reading development yielded positive results, but few practical applications.
- Technology was not being used in groundbreaking ways, but as a tool in the traditional curriculum.
- ICT for ELLs had a minimal though positive effect, however, it was unclear if it was the cause of the intervention or the technology.
- Teacher training is still more effective than technology training.
Which means.... don't go changing early reading programs to computer-based programs just yet!Research Involving Commercial Programs
However, NRP did not consider the effects of some commercial programs...Motivation
Gains due to motivation... is it the excitement of using technology? Or the actual software/program?
The Issue of Cost Effectiveness
Costliness of commercial programs is a critical aspect of the research. As an example, imagine a school implements an English program. Then they are offered a better English program. Would the cost to replace the existing program yield higher results? This kind of opportunity cost ideology takes place in schools on a daily basis.
Other issues with implementing technology immediately include:
Many critics, such as Krashen, believe that reading without being read to online or told the definition, is far more lasting than technology doing all the work. Many critics do argue in favor of technology, but many research are still looking for definitive research that proves technology has it's place in education and is cost effective.
Design Principles for Technology-Supported Instruction
What forms of technology will result in deeper learning and engage students in existing reading? In order to ensure the technology worked with answers these questions, you should ask yourself a series of questions:
1. Does the technology-supported instruction provide cognitive challenge and opportunities for processing of meaning?
2. Does the technology-supported instruction relate instruction to prior knowledge and experiences derived from students' homes and communities?
3. Does the technology-supported instruction promote active self-regulated collaborative inquiry?
4. Does the technology-supported instruction promote extensive engaged reading and writing across the curriculum?
5. Does the technology-supported instruction help students develop strategies for effective reading, writing, and learning?
6. Does the technology-supported instruction promote affective involvement and identify investment on the part of the students?